Inspector Morse 4 - Service Of All The Dead by Colin Dexter
Authors: Colin Dexter
Tags: Mystery
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to recoup from the unemployment exchange. Yet he'd got money from somewhere, by some means.
Morse considered a little wager of his own on the Chinaman's next selection, but squint as he would he couldn't quite see the name, and he left and walked thoughtfully up the hill. It was a pity. A few minutes after Morse had let himself into his flat, the little Chinaman stood smiling a not particularly inscrutable smile at the the pay-out counter. He hadn't really got his English syntax sorted out yet, but perhaps he'd coined as fitting an epitaph for Harry Josephs as any with those five disjointed adverbs: 'Always just not there quite.'
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
'N O, I'M SORRY, INSPECTOR —he isn't.' It was ten-past seven and Mrs. Lewis regretted the interruption to The Archers : she hoped that Morse would either come in or go away. 'Oxford are playing tonight, and he's gone to watch them.'
The rain had been falling steadily since tea-time, and still pattered the puddles in the Lewises' front drive. 'He must be mad,' said Morse.
'It's working with you, Inspector. Are you coming in?'
Morse shook his head and a raindrop dripped from his bare head on to his chin. 'I'll go and see if I can find him.'
'You must be mad,' muttered Mrs. Lewis.
Morse drove carefully through the rain up to Headington, the windscreen-wipers sweeping back and forth in clean arcs across the spattered window. It was these damned holidays that upset him! Earlier this Tuesday evening he had sat in his armchair, once again in the grip of a numbing lethargy that minute by minute grew ever more paralysing. The Playhouse offered him a Joe Orton farce, hailed by the critics as a comedy classic. No. The Moulin Rouge announced that the torrid Sandra Bergson was leading a sexy, savage, insatiable all-girl gang in On the Game : an X trailer, no doubt, advertising a U film. No. Every prospect seemed displeasing, and even women, temporarily, seemed vile. Then he'd suddenly thought of Sergeant Lewis.
It had been no problem parking the Jaguar in Sandfield Road, and Morse now pushed through the stiff turnstile into the Manor Road ground. Only a faithful sprinkling of bedraggled spectators was standing along the west-side terrace, their umbrellas streaked with rain; but the covered terrace at the London Road end was tightly packed with orange-and-black-scarved youngsters, their staccato 'Ox-ford—clap-clap-clap' intermittently echoing across the ground. One row of brilliant floodlights was suddenly switched on, and the wet grass twinkled in a thousand silvery gleams.
A roar greeted the home team, yellow-shirted, blue-shorted leaning forward against the slanting rain, and kicking and flicking a series of white footballs across the sodden pitch until they shone like polished billiard balls. Behind him, as Morse turned, was the main stand, under cover and under-populated; and he walked back to the entrance and bought himself a transfer ticket.
By half-time Oxford were two goals down, and in spite of repeated scrutinies of those around him, Morse had still not spotted Lewis. Throughout the first half, when the centre of the pitch and the two goal-mouths had churned up into areas of squelchy morass reminiscent of pictures of Passchendaele, Morse's thoughts had given him little rest. An improbable, illogical, intuitive notion was growing ever firmer in his mind—a mind now focused almost mesmerically on the tower of St. Frideswide's, and the fact that he himself was quite unable to check his forebodings served only to reinforce their probability. He needed Lewis badly—there could be no doubt of that.
Greeted by a cacophony of whistles and catcalls, his black top and shorts shining like a skin-diver's suit, the referee came out to inspect the pitch again, and Morse looked at the clock by the giant Scoreboard: 8.20 p.m. Was it really worth staying?
A firm hand gripped his shoulder from behind. 'You must be mad, sir.'
Lewis clambered over the back of the seat and sat himself
Morse considered a little wager of his own on the Chinaman's next selection, but squint as he would he couldn't quite see the name, and he left and walked thoughtfully up the hill. It was a pity. A few minutes after Morse had let himself into his flat, the little Chinaman stood smiling a not particularly inscrutable smile at the the pay-out counter. He hadn't really got his English syntax sorted out yet, but perhaps he'd coined as fitting an epitaph for Harry Josephs as any with those five disjointed adverbs: 'Always just not there quite.'
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
'N O, I'M SORRY, INSPECTOR —he isn't.' It was ten-past seven and Mrs. Lewis regretted the interruption to The Archers : she hoped that Morse would either come in or go away. 'Oxford are playing tonight, and he's gone to watch them.'
The rain had been falling steadily since tea-time, and still pattered the puddles in the Lewises' front drive. 'He must be mad,' said Morse.
'It's working with you, Inspector. Are you coming in?'
Morse shook his head and a raindrop dripped from his bare head on to his chin. 'I'll go and see if I can find him.'
'You must be mad,' muttered Mrs. Lewis.
Morse drove carefully through the rain up to Headington, the windscreen-wipers sweeping back and forth in clean arcs across the spattered window. It was these damned holidays that upset him! Earlier this Tuesday evening he had sat in his armchair, once again in the grip of a numbing lethargy that minute by minute grew ever more paralysing. The Playhouse offered him a Joe Orton farce, hailed by the critics as a comedy classic. No. The Moulin Rouge announced that the torrid Sandra Bergson was leading a sexy, savage, insatiable all-girl gang in On the Game : an X trailer, no doubt, advertising a U film. No. Every prospect seemed displeasing, and even women, temporarily, seemed vile. Then he'd suddenly thought of Sergeant Lewis.
It had been no problem parking the Jaguar in Sandfield Road, and Morse now pushed through the stiff turnstile into the Manor Road ground. Only a faithful sprinkling of bedraggled spectators was standing along the west-side terrace, their umbrellas streaked with rain; but the covered terrace at the London Road end was tightly packed with orange-and-black-scarved youngsters, their staccato 'Ox-ford—clap-clap-clap' intermittently echoing across the ground. One row of brilliant floodlights was suddenly switched on, and the wet grass twinkled in a thousand silvery gleams.
A roar greeted the home team, yellow-shirted, blue-shorted leaning forward against the slanting rain, and kicking and flicking a series of white footballs across the sodden pitch until they shone like polished billiard balls. Behind him, as Morse turned, was the main stand, under cover and under-populated; and he walked back to the entrance and bought himself a transfer ticket.
By half-time Oxford were two goals down, and in spite of repeated scrutinies of those around him, Morse had still not spotted Lewis. Throughout the first half, when the centre of the pitch and the two goal-mouths had churned up into areas of squelchy morass reminiscent of pictures of Passchendaele, Morse's thoughts had given him little rest. An improbable, illogical, intuitive notion was growing ever firmer in his mind—a mind now focused almost mesmerically on the tower of St. Frideswide's, and the fact that he himself was quite unable to check his forebodings served only to reinforce their probability. He needed Lewis badly—there could be no doubt of that.
Greeted by a cacophony of whistles and catcalls, his black top and shorts shining like a skin-diver's suit, the referee came out to inspect the pitch again, and Morse looked at the clock by the giant Scoreboard: 8.20 p.m. Was it really worth staying?
A firm hand gripped his shoulder from behind. 'You must be mad, sir.'
Lewis clambered over the back of the seat and sat himself
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